The Remaining (18 page)

The lights flicker like fireflies in the night until they finally go out, leaving the group in darkness in the cold, musty air of the basement. Jack slams the door shut and now they’re down here in relative silence, in the unfinished open area with the graves of the dead nearby.

Tommy turns on the night vision in his camera and sees Dan cradling Skylar. The faces that look into the camera are ghosts and zombies counting the seconds before they’re finally free of this nightmare.

But there’s only one way for that to happen.

Tommy doesn’t know some of these people. Most, in fact. Yet they’re all down here huddled together in fear and
in darkness. He’s videoing them in order to keep this for whoever comes next. For whoever’s left. Assuming he’s gone.

Unless, of course, we’re all gone.

“Where’s Rachel?” the faint voice belonging to Skylar asks.

It wasn’t long ago that she was saying how much she loved Dan, how much she adored him and how she couldn’t wait for their future. The promises and the dancing and the wine and the fun.

Tommy shoves the thought away.

This is all we have now and this is all I can do.

“Rachel?” Tommy asks out loud.

He looks at everybody his camera is picking up but doesn’t find the nurse anywhere. Then he hears the sounds again. The fluttering beat coming, a heavy and ominous pounding.

The sound comes from above the church but they can hear it even down here.

There are some cries and gasps.

The thrashing continues like some loud, angry animal punching the walls and the rooftop.

The camera wavers as Tommy’s hand shakes. There’s no sign of the nurse.

“Rachel?” he calls out again. “Has anyone seen Rachel?”

“The nurse? She was in the triage.” It’s a woman in the shadowed crowd talking.

Tommy shuts his eyes for a moment and curses to himself.

“Rachel’s out there,” Skylar says in a weak voice. “We have to
 
—”

Someone screams. Not like a scared-you sort of scream but a painful, hurting scream that continues for a while. Getting closer. And closer.

Jack opens the door a crack. Tommy looks out and can hear the scream approaching.

No no no.

It’s her. She’s racing to get down the stairs.

But something wants her it’s taking her it’s grabbing her.

Jack starts to move but Tommy jumps on his back and prevents him from going out there and being a moron.

A dying moron.

“Jack, no, come on.”

Rachel falls and climbs to her feet again but then something
 
—some dark shadowy hand
 
—swoops in and takes her and slams her against the wall, her lifeless body suddenly a kid’s doll bashed against the hard, flat surface with malice. Tommy pulls Jack in.

The door slams shut.

The silence is sickening.

Tommy pictures Rachel’s body being bashed back and forth and doesn’t know what could do such a thing. What kind of demon can pick you up and flail you around like that? What kind of things are they dealing with?

The hushed cries all around him are the answers. Nobody knows. Nobody knows and one by one they keep dying. Violently and unexpectedly and suddenly.

As Tommy and Jack stand a few feet away from the locked door, Pastor Shay comes and puts his head by it.

Something is behind it. Something breathing. Something sick, waiting and wanting all of us.

The scratching starts. As if it can smell the pastor and knows who’s standing there and wants to rip the heart and soul from this man. It sounds like a dog wanting to get in. Not a little dog but a feverish devil dog clawing with its two front paws, ripping into the door until the thin barrier can’t take any more.

The pastor and Jack lean against the door. It looks like it’s about to pop out, to split or be crushed. The rest of the survivors are moving away from the doorway.

Faint, heavy, sickly whispers can be heard outside.

Skreeeeeee

Scratching, hovering, pushing, tapping. They want inside. They want them. They’re hungry and they’re not going away.

“Listen to me,” the pastor calls out to Jack and Tommy. “Get everyone out of the church
 
—after
 
—”

More scratching, frantic and panting and breathless.

Then a thunderous bang comes. They can all feel it and it shakes them.

No.

Tommy’s eyes burn and his gut clenches without breathing and without looking. Every loud thud or pounding or scrape results in someone screaming or whimpering.

“What are you going to
 
—?” Tommy starts to say to the pastor.

“Just listen to me!”

Another loud boom.

They’re coming. They’re going to break through.

The pastor begins talking in a hoarse, frantic voice but one with full authority. “There’s a relief center set up outside the city, at the Cape Fear Bridge. They have supplies. Get everyone out of the city.”

“What are you talking about?” Jack asks, still pushing back on the door that’s buckling and popping.

“We know they’re attacking the churches, these things. Get these people to the relief center. And whatever you do, stick together.”

Tommy puts his camera down for a moment. He thinks he knows what’s about to happen.

That can’t happen he’s not going to do it he’s not crazy.

“What are you doing?” Jack asks.

“There is only one way out.”

It’s not going to end this way. No.

The loud bang startles all of them, including Tommy, who ducks for a moment since it seems so close. And then before he can do anything or say anything, the pastor moves to the door. Then he looks at Tommy.

“I’ve seen it in you,” the pastor tells them. “Lead them out of here. You can do it.”

The pastor opens the door a sliver.

“They’re here for me,” he tells them.

Then he shoves Jack away from the door and opens it all the way.

“I’m so sorry.”

The words . . .

Who’d he say them to? Jack? Me? All of us?

But Tommy doesn’t think so.

They were for the God he supposedly followed and served and preached about for his whole time as a pastor. The words were directed upward.

Pastor Shay steps through the doorway and then opens up his arms and the hellish creatures smother and snap and suck the man’s body. The bones crack and buckle under the demons’ grip as the pastor begins to howl in a way Tommy’s never heard before. Shay’s body is lifted and snapped and then seized into the darkness all while his bloody wails continue.

Tommy and Jack both slam the door shut and soon the bellowing stops. They wait for a moment. Then something massive slams against the door. It sounds exactly the way a one-hundred-and-eighty-pound dead body would sound hurled up against a door.

The corpse of the pastor is just outside. The something seems to snatch it up again and slide it away.

Then . . . silence. Strange, eerie, awful silence.

But the monsters are gone. For now.

Breathe. In. Out. Again. Once more. In. Out. And again.

These are the simple thoughts running through Allison’s mind.

Breathe. And again. And again.

Sitting on the hard cement, the part of the basement that isn’t dirt, Allison covers her legs with her arms and waits and listens. She can’t sleep or even begin to. She keeps waiting for the clawing and scraping to start again.

The unholy, hellish sounds don’t resume.

It doesn’t keep her from shivering with fear.

We were just all dancing together listening to rap and rapping along with it.

Time doesn’t care about them anymore. And God? Does God care?

Are You up there? Are You watching? Can You even hear me with all the other carnage You have to deal with?

Her heart wants to just stop. Her eyes want to roll back in her head and stay there.

The world ended.
Ended.
Ended right in front of her face. And still it rips apart, bit by bit. A pastor sucked up and snapped and spit back out by something. Something she can’t even speculate on. What can do that? Who can do that? And who can
allow
that to happen?

If this is Judgment Day, then she has lots to pay for. For not being a good girl and not believing and not caring and not submitting.

I’m a big, fat, failing sinner and I’m going to die soon.

She knows this.

Allison knows this and it hurts to breathe.

The world is over and I might as well be over and it comes down to this thing this whole big bad thing I do or don’t believe in.

Thoughts swirl. End-of-the-world stories aren’t supposed to be like this. They’re supposed to have ways out. They’re supposed to have sweet moments of grace. They’re supposed to have sweeping orchestral music and A-list actors and bright lights and rainbows all coming at the right moment to bring salvation.

But none of those things are happening. None of those things are coming.

It’s just silent and dark and lonely.

Breathe in. Breathe out.

She tells herself again. And again. Huddled and hunkered down and hungry and utterly and completely flying off the handle.

God can You hear me please God?

Please.

In.

Out.

Where are You, God? Where are the tiny strands of light in this dark place?

Where is the sunset? Have You forgotten to turn it on? Have You finally let us put out the fire?

Can You only hear me if I’m on my knees, with my hands folded, with my eyes closed?

Do I need to be afraid?

Do I need to be fearful?

When will this night be over or will it ever?

When can I wake up and see the normalcy we all once had?

I want it back. I want to rewind the video of life. I want to redo. I want to redo it all.

But does that mean I have to accept You’re behind it all?

The cracks in the door allow streaks of sunlight to cut through the darkness they’ve been huddled together in all night. Tommy is cold and sore and exhausted yet his mind still races. He wants to get out of this hole, to get away from the dead bodies buried not so far away, to feel the sun on his face and breathe in fresh air. He also wants to try to do something, anything, to fight the creatures that are attacking them.

We have to be able to do something, right?

Jack is the first out of the group to stand and move to the door. “I haven’t heard anything for a while,” he tells them.

“Don’t do it,” someone says.

“Maybe they’re gone,” another voice says.

The discussion continues as Jack ignores it like always and does his own thing. He opens the door a few inches, and dust floats in the air as more light makes Tommy squint. No screams. No demon sounds. Nothing yet.

“I think it’s okay,” Jack tells them.

Tommy stands and looks over to Allison and Dan and Skylar. Several times in the night, he heard Skylar’s haggard breathing and her soft moans of pain. She’s made it this far, however. There’s hope for her.

There’s hope for all of us. The sun brings that.

They begin to file into the hallway and then climb upstairs around the debris of broken windows and cracked walls. Jack has to push open the door leading to the sanctuary. When Tommy follows him, he can’t believe what he’s seeing.

There is something hypnotic and beautiful in the carnage that awaits them. The holes in the roof and walls of the church allow streaks of sunlight to crisscross throughout the shadows of the church. The pews are overturned and littered with glass and wood and plaster. What remains of the stained-glass windows have been melted from the outside, as if someone placed a blowtorch right next to them.

Jack turns to them with horror on his face. “Don’t look up there,” he says.

But Tommy glances at the front of the church and sees the body of Pastor Shay hanging upside down over the altar. Blood drips from his unrecognizable face. He resembles a garbage bag that was tossed and didn’t quite make the can. Nearby, the leather cover of the pastor’s Bible can be seen. Jack steps over it and kicks it, spilling out pages that are now simply ash. Tommy is reminded of what happened to Skylar’s Bible after she was attacked.

The banner that hung on the wall with a Bible verse on it now is simply bits of cloth with words that have been shredded into the dust floating around them.

“Come on, let’s go,” Jack tells them.

Nobody says anything but continues walking. Not
long ago the lifeless man hanging over the altar spoke to them about faith and hope. Now they pass him by like the wreckage in this room. Something broken and disposable that they’re leaving behind.

A loud crash makes everybody jump. Tommy shields Allison from the sound, then realizes it was only a light fixture plummeting to the ground.

It’s going to be nice to get out of here and breathe air that doesn’t have the stench of death connected to it.

The group of survivors begins heading down the street in the direction of the bridge where the relief center is supposed to be. Tommy is torn between wanting to follow Pastor Shay’s instruction to lead them and his loyalty to his friends. In the end his friends win out, and the broken bridal party from Dan and Skylar’s wedding just stand and watch the others slowly disappear. The sun is up above and the clouds are gone. It actually feels like a normal day
 
—if, of course, you were to forget about all the dead bodies and wreckage surrounding them.

Skylar struggles to hang on to Dan’s and Jack’s shoulders for support. She barely made it out of the church. What’s going to happen on their trek to the hospital?

“The hospital is just across the freeway,” Dan says. “There’s gotta be a doctor there or medicine.”

“We need to go with the others to the relief center,” Jack says. “Shay told us to stick together.”

“They’ve probably got medical supplies there,” Allison adds.

“No. Rachel said she needs an antivenom. We’re going to the hospital.” Dan doesn’t just sound determined. He sounds like an angry, possessed man on a mission.

“Don’t worry about me,” Skylar says in a voice Tommy can barely hear.

Tommy takes Skylar for a moment while Dan and Jack continue to talk about what to do. Allison seems to have had it with her violet dress that’s already scraped and frayed at the bottom. She starts to rip it to shorten it and allow her to walk better.

Glancing at Skylar, Tommy can see the shrunken cheeks and the loss of color. Everything that was bright and beautiful about Skylar twenty-four hours ago seems to be gone. She’s a shell that’s slowly starting to crack and dry up.

She’s not going to be alive much longer.

“We can make it to the relief center,” Jack says.

“I’m not taking that chance. Skylar needs help now.”

Two alpha males competing with each other when they really need to be working hand in hand.

“Doesn’t the word
relief
spell help to you?” Jack asks.

Dan looks red-faced and unlikely to budge. “You have no idea if there really is a relief center. We know there’s a hospital. We know there’s doctors and medicine there.”

Dan takes Skylar back from Tommy and starts to guide her in the direction of the hospital, but Jack blocks his way.

“Get out of my way,” Dan tells him.

“No.”

“Skylar’s dying right here. Do you understand that? I can’t lose her. She’s my wife.”

“I’m not letting anyone else get hurt. Now let’s get going
 
—”

Dan immediately lets go of Skylar and rushes toward Jack and the two of them fall to the ground. Dan doesn’t know how to fight, so the scene is darkly comical as he tries to secure a choke hold on Jack’s neck but gets nowhere. Jack pops him in the head but doesn’t want to fight his friend.

Tommy makes sure Skylar sits on the grass before intervening. He gets between his two friends and curses and shoves both of them away from each other. “Knock it off. Both of you. Dan’s right. We have to try the hospital. I’ll go with him. We’ll meet you at the relief center. Okay?”

Jack looks at all of them. “No. We stay together. We’ll all go.”

Allison looks sick, like she’s going to cry again.

Tommy nods at her. “It’s going to be okay. We find medicine and then we’ll be on our way to the relief center.”

Sam is nearby, waiting to see what happens.

“You good with that?” Tommy asks her.

“I’m okay,” Sam says.

“Let’s get moving.”

Every passing stranger either ignores them or stays away, scared of their group or maybe just slightly out of their
mind as they should be. Everything around them carries scars, as if some giant wiped a mighty claw over everything and left shards and slivers behind. Streets are cracked, the cement crushed and fragmented. Buildings are half there, ransacked and abandoned and mostly reduced to rubble. Vehicles litter everything, from parking lots to grassy lawns to intersections. Everything is cluttered and discombobulated. Yet actual living, breathing souls are seldom seen.

Maybe they’re all dead and everyone left has gone to the relief center.

The sun bears down and Tommy sweats and feels a little more like his old self. This is his daily workout like he used to always have. Now all he has to do is go back to his apartment and back to his old routine and his old life. But those are all gone.

Strange images come to his mind.

The watch he had hoped to save up for all year to finally buy. The one he didn’t really need because who really actually looks at a watch for the time anymore anyway. The one that seems ridiculous now since he might as well be counting down the minutes and seconds himself since the end is not near, it’s here and it’s now.

The job he didn’t get that gave him sleepless nights. The worry and the angst and the frustration. Like the watch, so meaningless.

Then there’s the woman walking in front of him, the one walking in step with Jack. The girl he’s been in love with for a while, the one whom he finally told the truth
to. The big revelation, only to result in a whole lot of nothing.

You spend long moments worrying and wondering only to see them wash up on the shore of a sea of wasted hours. Only to see them stranded on the island of foolishness. He wants that time back. He wants that energy back.

I want everything back. I want to redo so much I have no idea where to even start.

He wipes his brow. Unbuttons his cuffs and rolls up his sleeves.

They pass by a helicopter that’s on its side and split in half. It’s just another thing to notice and then leave behind.

As they enter the shadows underneath the freeway ramp, Allison asks the question all of them are thinking.

“What if nobody’s at the hospital?”

“Someone will be there,” Dan says as he continues to assist Skylar in their walk.

Allie glances back at Tommy. He gives her the best smile he can muster.

It’s not much, but it’s all he can offer her right now.